


Downhill

by Pugrii_writes_2453



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Depression, Friendship, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Tenth Doctor Angst, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28295619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pugrii_writes_2453/pseuds/Pugrii_writes_2453
Summary: Sometimes even the doctor needs a hug.listen to Downhill by Licoln while reading, please
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Donna Noble
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Downhill

**Author's Note:**

> The song I put in the summary really fits this fic so listen to it, please. It´s also very good, so bonus for that. The title was also taken from that song!

After Martha had left time had passed. Already one day after there were things he started to push aside, not forgetting because that was something he wasn´t able to do, just not thinking about them until he had to dig for those memories. No matter how much he wanted to sometimes. He forgot how Rose always thanked him for the things he did or got for her in one way or another, like making breakfast or just holding him after an adventure for a little, sometimes just being with him enjoying the silence. He forgot how Martha had looked up to him and followed him everywhere, how she kept on telling his story, even though she knew that soon none of them would remember. Those moments he would treasure forever but he...just didn´t think about them to avoid the pain of loss that came with them. 

It was a good thing when he didn´t think about the past, a blessing even. In fact, he didn´t think back at all. Everyday there was just what he had to do next, over and over again. There was little in between, only what he had to do. What puzzle pieces belonged where to solve the puzzle, make sure that Donna was fine and there wasn´t anything she needed, mend the things that broke when he crash-landed the TARDIS once again. However, if one didn´t think back once in a while one could easily forget about the good times. The times he had enjoyed and cherished. Roses laugh, the way her eyes always sparkled after seeing another new planet, new species, new adventure. The way she would just know when he wasn´t feeling good and just needed someone there with him or when he needed someone to hold him back. How much he loved her and how much it hurt for her not to be right there anymore. All of the things he had went through with Martha, strong and brave Martha, and had still been able to smile with her. He forgot that sometimes people were kind and most of all to him. Him, who didn´t deserve it. 

It was monotone and it got harder every day to not seem suspicious. The doctor wasn´t...in the best of spirits but there was nothing to worry about because he was fine and would be even better tomorrow. He ignored that it never did and he ignored that he slept less and less, so that even in timelord standards he was sleep deprived. He ignored how he made more mistakes then usual and oversaw more esentially risking their lives without reason, but he didn´t want to make the connection. Didn´t want to see that there was something wrong. 

Instead he worked harder to make up for it. This chipped away even more on his strength and stamina. More than once he had snapped at Donna unneseccarily and he was sorry, he really was but how should he make it up to her? Apologizing had never really been his strong suit and he feared he might just apologize for more than needed to once he started. To fix yet another mistake he made, the doctor decided to just stop talking when he found himself almost remaking said mistake. It would surely make Donna happier when they didn´t always fight at any small inconvinience and she didn´t need to yell at him to get her human points across. It was better that way. His words once had almost gotten him completly killed, almost thrown out by the people he was trying to protect.

The doctor was fine, he really was. 

There was nothing wrong with his behaviour, not at all. Not sleeping for days on end and only resting when he literally passed out, was fine. Just as fine as not being able to eat anything without tasting ash or wanting to throw up. It was perfectly normal and there was nothing to worry about.

***

Donna was really worried. The shift had been so gradually she hadn´t even noticed it at first, but over the last few days she had noticed that something just wasn´t right. The doctor normally looked slightly nervous constantly and didn´t need much sleep or food because of his "superior timelord biology". It had gone too far now, though. She had now watched for a few days and decided enough was enough. As long as there was something she could do, she would. From what she had been able to gather the Doctor seemed to have a whole lot of issues he didn´t want to deal with. She had seen the same happen to humans too. They all showed the same symptons as he did, most of those people she had barely known and some of them just dissapeared. The news of their death never became public just to save the families face. Just what was she to do?

She had been lying in bed trying to fall asleep, but just couldn´t. There was a deep rumbling coming from the walls and everytime she nearly fell asleep it pitched higher and got louder. At that point she knew the TARDIS wanted something from her (more than just keep her awake). So begrudgingly she had gotten up and followed the noise. With the TARDIS´ help it didn´t take her long to almost literally stumble over something. To say she was surprise to see the Doctor huddling against the wall on the floor in a heap of limbs wasn´t exactly what she had expected. Even though she always said she hated him and with their fights, remarks and witty comments, which she actually started to miss, they were good friends. They got along well and Donna was scared shitless to just see him collapsed like this. If there was something distinct about the Timelord then it was that he never stopped moving, thinking or talking. Donna had never tried to imagine how he slept but now that she found him passed out her brain immediantly went into danger mode. 

For a while she loudly and worriedly demanded for him to wake up, until after a particular loud rumble Donna got the point. "Okay, okay ya big blue box. No need to shout at me", she said towards no part of the TARDIS in particular. She still hadn´t figured out how a machine was concious but at this point she wouldn´t be questioning anything with a literal alien in her lap. After a few more minutes she just decided to get him to his room, since there was no way she could just leave him there.

***

Donna leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms. She had been standing there for a while and was surprised that he hadn´t noticed her yet. This infuriated her because normally he would have immediantly. "Do you know that I care about you?", she asked. Normally she would have laughed at the way he jumped and dropped the packet of tea he had just taken out of the cupboard. He spun around and stared at her for a little while. Donna neither budged nor changed her position, this time he would talk one way or another. "Donna! Don´t sneak up on me like that if I would have been working on the TARDIS with my sonic your head might have been cut clean off", he tried to joke. It wasn´t funny. "You do know I care about you, right?", she demanded to knwo once more. 

"What do you mean Donna? Of course I know that", he answered. The expression on his face was...new. His eyebrows scrunched together questioningly and his eyes wide, searching for the lie. He knew exactly what she had asked him. It didn´t suit the Doctor. It just looked so unlike him. The Doctor always had this glint in his eyes, as if he knew everything and that fire, that always told her that he was determinded to help everyone he could, but this coldness, that told her about the pain, about the horror and heartbreak he must have suffered, even though he never talked about it. There was so much she didn´t know about him and there was so much he hid, behind his grins and laughs and jokes. Donna sometimes wondered how much of what she was able to see was real. Did his lip just wobble? No, this must be some joke, some very good joke, because she couldn´t see this glint, fire or coldness, only...uncertainty and pain. 

To many signs she had dismissed and she wouldn´t just let him ruin himself right in front of her eyes thinking she wouldn´t step in, because oh boy was he wrong. There were some choice things she had to say about him not having eaten in like three days or about him deciding not to sleep until he just passed out or about his smiled growing smaller and hollower everyday and about his eyes dulling over and him barely speaking to her anymore. At first she had thought it was something that she had said or that he was getting sick of her "nagging" him (as he had once unrightfuly put it) but after the days stretched on and her not "nagging" him hadn´t changed anything it was obvious it was something up with him and not her. 

"Tell me. Do you know that? No, even better, do you understand that I do?", she asked more urgently. 

Silence.

She got pissed. There were so many times that showed that she cared about him and was there for him. The time she had made him see that there were more things he could do than he thought he did in Pompeii or just yesterday when she had thought about saving him something of the scrambled eggs she had made for breakfast with a god damn note. It still sat there on the microwave untouched. It made her angry that he decided to ignore all these big and small things she did for him, because she knew there were a whole lot of things he had done for the entire human race and some things only for her. It made her angry because she even said that she loved him or at least that she hated him very _very_ sarcastically, if he overheard her saying that she cared. Now he was just fishing for words? If there was anything about the doctor then it was that he could never shut up, beside his weird urge to sacrifce himself for literally anyone. He couldn´t even meet her eyes! 

She knew that he wasn´t doing well and that it was getting progressivly worse but there was no point in hiding it! There were days when Donna just wasn´t feeling good or was down and he would take her to beautiful and calm places. Those times he always made sure they were at the right place and time, so nothing would get in his way to make her feel better. That was what friends were for! Being there for eachother and getting them to be better for themselves, having a shoulder they could cry on. It made her angry that the doctor just didn´t want to see that fact, that he didn´t want to see how she would be there if he needed someone, that they were friends.

"Alright then. Let me spell it out for you: I care about you and don´t want to find you passed out in the middle of a hallway again because you simply ´forgotˋ to go to sleep or eat, alright? I feel personally insulted, that you decide to run yourself into the ground instead of coming to me for help. That kind of gives me the impression that you either don´t trust me at all or just don´t trust me to help you. I know that´s not it, so what´s going on with you? You worry me and something isn´t right. I know that much, so explain to human me. Why did you lie to me just now?", she asked urgently. Whatever this was she wanted it to stop and have the doctor back that she started this journey with. 

He lowered his head, so she couldn´t see her in the face. Not one word, not one word of explanaiton or apology or anything at all. This only edged her on more and she opened her mouth to demand him to use that smart mouth he usually couldn´t stop from spewing facts above her knowledge to explain what in the bloody hell was going on in that big brain of his. Then she stopped...was that...sniffling? Did she hear this right? All of this fire just vanished and seeped out of her. "Doctor?", she asked carefully. Had she been too harsh? What was going on? 

Small droplets of water dripped onto the floor. The doctor was crying. Donna couldn´t see his face but she could see how his shoulders shook, how he hid his face in his hands, she could hear the sniffling and quiet hiccups. The doctor was actually crying and was very desperatly trying to stop it. More quickly than Donna could react he spun around and tried to leave the room. This again sparked something inside of Donna and shook her out of her surprise. "Oh, no you don´t! You don´t get to walk out on this. You will stay and tell me exactly what´s going on with you!", she demanded and rushed after him. Somehow she managed to block the door with her body so the doctor couldn´t get out without having to push her aside, which she knew he wouldn´t. 

It was...unfamiliar, almost scary to see the doctor like this. At least he was looking her in the eye again. Somehow she wished she didn´t. Wide eyed, almost scared, tears still silently falling, his fists clenched so that his knuckles turned white and he still hadn´t said a single word. The image Donna had had of him just died right then and there. The strong, invincible and always cheery doctor vanished and she thought maybe she just saw the real person underneath all of those walls and walls of security. A vulnerable and hurt man, damned to be lonely forever. Suddenly she felt sorry for him and just wanted to make it all better. "Please, just talk to me", Donna almost begged, still fiercly standing her ground in the door. 

This just broke something inside of him. The first sob tore out of his throat and big, fat tears started falling from his eyes. Donna was taken aback once again, she really hadn´t expected him to just burst into tears. Not like that. She had never seen the doctor cry, at all...ever. This had gotten way worse than she had imagined. She stood there for a second unsure what to do, what he would let her do and instead watched as he just let out these quiet heartbreaking sobs with his head hanging low, so she couldn´t see him in the eyes again to see just in how much pain he was in, while he desperatly tried to stop the tears from falling anymore. Slowly he leaned forward into himself, as if the hide. Was what she had said really that revolutionary? Donna finally stepped closer and just ever so carefully put her hands on the sides of his face to make him look at her.

It shocked her just how much uncertaintiy and selfdoubt was written over his face, but most of all: shame. He was ashamed to be crying? To not be fine? To have emotions? She didn´t understand but desperatly wanted to. He was trying to keep himself quiet and failing to stop his crying to turn into a full on breakdown. He was biting down on his lip so hard Donna feared he might just split it. "Stop it", she said, surprised at how quiet and shaky her voice decided to be, "It´s okay." Finally the last wall came down. It was surprising how clear she could see the moment he gave up trying. 

Donna just held him close while he sobbed and cried loudly. These sounds just broke her heart and maybe her eyes got a little wet too. She could feel him shake and tremble, she could feel tears hitting her back and his hands knotting into her shirt, holding on for dear life. Between loud sob, hiccups he let out these just plain hearbroken whimpers, that convinced Donna that he hadn´t let his emotions show at all in the past few weeks, mabye months or worse. Again and again she reassured him, holding him tight, not letting go. When Donna noticed how he slipped out of her grip, how his legs started giving out. she just gently lowered them both onto the floor. The doctor hid his face in his knees so all she could to was stroke the back of his neck and hold him. He still refused to let go the sides of her shirt. 

They sat there holding each other for what felt like hours. The doctor cried until he couldn´t anymore and slipped into a - hopefully - dreamless sleep. Donna might have cried a few times too, simply because it was so overwhelming that someone as smart as the doctor needed it to be spelled out for him that she cared for him, not only the things he could do for her or show her, that they were friends and that she cared. "You idiot", she whispered and got herself into a more comfortable position, leaning against the wall with an immortal timelord nesleted into her side, still holding onto her. Stroking his always messy hair she sighed contently. The TARDIS dimmed the lights. Slowly Donna drifted off to sleep as well. 

Sometimes even the doctor needed a hug.

**Author's Note:**

> I found this sitting in my notes and finished it today. I have no idea when I wrote the first half, but oh well. Hope you liked it. Hope you don´t think I´m dead yet, because I am not! Have a lovely christmas and stay safe.


End file.
